provide your SBHC with credibility and visibility to health plans and payers;

standardize your SBHC’s clinical processes ;

facilitate continuous quality improvement (QI) in your SBHC; and

enhance staff education in your SBHC.

The challenges. Providers should be advised that pursuing formal PCMH recognition is a commitment of human and financial resources—and can be especially challenging for small teams. Time and money aside, some have reported other challenges in their pursuit of recognition. The most common of these are:

insufficient information technology support to extract data and generate reports;

PCMH standards in place but not easily documented;

inability to arrange 24-hour, 7-day a week access to care;

clinic orientation is predominantly acute care rather than comprehensive preventive care; and

recognition process does not address the unique confidentiality needs of students.